Thursday 28 April 2016

28th April 1936 - Mary to Terrick

Dunally Lodge
Shepperton

April 28th 


My dearest dear - I hope you are quite well - as I am - and that two days without hearing from me has not undermined your constitution in any way.  If you could calculate all the time I spend each day thinking of you, you'd blush for shame thinking what an idle woman you must have chosen - but I can do other things at the same time! - although, of course, one of them has to suffer a bit in consequence.

Flip & I spent yesterday out together at the dentist and buying his outfit in Dean Street W.1.  we passed your place at exactly 1p.m. - just to cheer me on my way a bit! Then we had to do some shopping in Kensington & Flip had been promised he could go to the pictures - so we went to the Hammersmith Gaumont - got in at 2.30 and the programme lasted until 6.10!! - so you can imagine what I felt like when we got out.  But the films were quite passable and a jolly good Silly Symphony.

Are you booked up anywhere for Friday evening?  Do you think I could come and see you then?  It doesn't really matter - because, as Mummy says "you'll see him on Saturday" - but it's another 24 hours anyway.  I'm driving Mummy up to the office on Thursday - and we're going to see "These Three" - but I've got Shakespeare in the evening - so that's no good for seeing you.

I've asked Grannie particulars about Saturday & she says arrive about 5.30 - so you could go to your British Museum, couldn't you? - I think it finished about 7.30, and we shall probably all come home together afterwards.  is it settled with Paul about dinner next Sunday?  Because Jack is driving Mummy down to a friend at Brighton for the day - so we shan't be able to have the car.  Could you ask Paul the best way to come?  It is a pity it isn't Saturday after Grannie's.

I ordered the photographs yesterday - and they'll be 10 days.  I'm longing to see yours up in your room.  Couldn't you have one of yourself taken for a birthday present for me?  Or had you already planned to give me a saucepan-cleaner? 

- Did you remember we'd been engaged a month yesterday?  My ring looks as if it's lived there all it's life now - and it felt frightfully strange when you first put it on.

It has been wonderfully hot here all today.  I went to sleep in the sun after lunch, and have been sewing since then.  Mummy has gone to bed early with a streaming cold.

I had a very nice cheery letter from "the Commander" this morning - but it's a pity about the exclamation marks.

I'm getting to the pitch, when, because my feelings remain at the same high pitch continuously, I have to repeat myself or else say nothing at all.  You mean so much more to me than I can ever write down (even with copying it out afterwards) that I can only tell you how much I long for the time when I can show you my love instead of inadequately trying to tell you about it.  In these blissful and magical days it's one of the best thoughts I have that one day my love for you will even be a deeper and more wonderful thing that it is now.

- With you beside me life would be almost too magnificent.

I don't know what I've done to deserve anybody as wonderful as you.

- I love you - 

Mary Pleasant.

Sunday 24 April 2016

24th April 1936 - Mary to Terrick

Dunally Lodge
Shepperton

April 24thd 1936


Dearest Ticky

With much thought on the matter in the last 24 hours (for obvious reasons) - I have discovered three main causes from which our future disagreements will probably spring.

(If you're not feeling in the mood for this kind of idle prattle I should leave this until later)

- Now and again when driving myself in the car, I like to ponder on our middle age.  Our youth is destined to be so magnificent (as it has been for 3½ years) that it only needs "relishing" and not "pondering".  But I often consider (quite seriously) what a terrific responsibility "marriage" is.  I don't mean the usual kind of responsibility - money and children - but the responsibility each of you suddenly takes upon yourselves for the welfare and happiness of another single individual (absolutely and entirely different from the comparatively small responsibility one has as a member of a family).

So it really seems to me a great help to try and imagine what unexpected pit-falls you may have to come up against, and what you would do if you did - and it's much more fun to tell you too - and for you to tell me, because that way we might avoid them altogether - or we might even find them funny if we met them:

The pit-fall that I (probably in common with the rest of the world) always put first, is "money" because there are so many ways of treating it and when it's gone it's so gone - (I have a feeling it would be easier to put steps down the side of this "pit" - we shall be in it so often).

- The second is my tongue  which has never in this life ever thought twice before it said exactly what it wanted to - I'm frightfully sorry about it - and I put some of the blame on having been brought up in a family where everyone is as bad.  But that doesn't mean to say I can't improve - and a few months back I tried very hard for about a week - and now I'm just as bad as I was.  This is one of my stupider sides, darlingest, and it's a good job you know too much about it already.  Perhaps if you told me about it when I was doing it, it might make a difference.

- The third point is, and this is quite a new one (and rather original, I thought!) your digestion.  Now I know mine isn't too good, and I may suffer quite as much as you - but a middle-aged woman with indigestion is twenty times more companionable than a middle-aged man. (Don't as me on what I found my statement - but it's what I imagine).  I had quite vivid pictures of you the other night - not as being fat - but thin and irritable and bad-tempered - and you kept on worrying about what you were having to eat.  It was the kind of picture that made me feel that one day it might quite easily come true (I'm sorry I'm being so rude) - and then I remembered how you had indigestion even now in these days - so I'm filled with foreboding!!!  Do you think we can do anything about it?  Or don't you think there's much need to worry? - It might quite easily be the other way round, of course!

- I haven't got very much longer before the post goes - and I'm horrified to think how bored you'll be by this time - I can't understand what it is urges me to write to you when I've nothing to say!

I'm glad you got my message about the "Morning Post" - we didn't see it ourselves until we got home.  it was jolly decent of them, wasn't it?  I wonder if it'll be in any more.  I haven't heard from the Yorkshire Post people yet.  The one of us both is the one I'm longing to see.  Can't we ask them about it again?


Tomorrow Mummy & I are leaving here at 2.15.  So can you meet us at Richmond Station per usual at 2.45? It will save you taking your case to the office in the morning won't it?  So if you don't phone we'll pick you up then.  I think the weekend should be quite fun - don't you? It'll be marvellous having you to myself again for a bit.  I miss you so terribly every day now.

- Goodnight, very dearest dear - you'll never understand what you mean to me.

Your very own

Mary Pleasant  xxx

24th April 1936 - Terrick to Mary

Thanks for your letter, which arrived safely.


CERCLE DES ETRANGERS
DE MONACO
SALON DE LECTURE

LE 12th April 1936

I'll see what can be done about this (!) week-end


My Own Mary,

The first day and a half was such a whirl of busy-ness and settling the clients into the programme that I didn't notice much that you weren't there, but now the thought butts in upon me in my busiest times:  Oh if Mary were here how she would laugh - or: what a good story she would make of that.

When my one disagreeable client is doing her disagreeableness, and I am groping mentally for the diplomatic answers, the idea of your taking her off makes me see how funny she really is.  And when my diplomacy comes off I think: I wish she had seen that.

The journey down went off very well.  It was hard work because there was only one dining-car, but there were only two meals and a few services of tea to serve, and a splendid lot of assistants to help me.

But the stay in Nice itself is not nearly such fun.  I think being away from you is responsible for that in more ways than are immediately obvious.  Last year Paul and I just had a frivolous time.  This year my idea of a good time is so completely connected with you that I don't expect or try to enjoy myself much, except in so far as I enjoy ripping for it's own sake.

I am sitting writing this in the Casino at Monte Carlo.  We are running the trip twice this year instead of once so that this has cut out an evening of writing to you.  But now that I have explained the games to a fair number of people I have left them and have "found out a way".

Today it has rained cats and dogs since early morning, and is still at it (10.45p.m.)  It has messed up one of the fêtes but only an unimportant one.  Tomorrow is the Battle of Flowers so it mustn't rain - besides my clients at the Hotel Everest are complaining of the cold today and the proprietress refuses point blank to put on the central heating.

I am sleeping in a bathroom that only has a window looking out onto a pitch dark passage, so that when I wake up in the morning everything is pitch black and I haven't the foggiest idea until I look at my watch, whether it is day, night or next week.

I have been to the shop where I got your bangle last time but they haven't got anything like it.  It was fashionable at the time.

Dean & Dawson's conductor on the train is normaly Raymond Whitcomb's man, and he gave me some useful inside information.  Apparently the Asst. Manager has just given notice because he doesn't get on with Pontin, the Manager.  They are just moving to large offices in Berkeley Square, and business is looking up.  I shoujld probably be wanted for the Foreign Independent Tours Dept. (just what Pontin told me) and my salary - at a guess - would be £5 or £6 to start with.

Interesting.

I must stop writing now because in five minutes we start for home.

The roof of my motor coach has become so saturated with rain all day that it leaks - much to the displeasure of some of the clients.  Fortunately all my Cavallero people are very nice.

Next morning

A free morning before the Battle of Flowers.  The sun is shining gloriously and the party are brightening up again.

This morning I woke up and realised that all I wanted was to get back to London and you as quickly as possible.  I had looked forward to coming here because I enjoyed last Easter, but I omitted from my calculations how much water had flowed under our bridge since then.  I didn't mind being away from you for a week then, but now I mind it as much as I minded being here away from you for eight months in 1933.  I am sitting in the Brice writing this and for a moment three years seem to have rolled back and I am telling you you love me while you are answering that you don't - and saying it in such a way that I am only more certain that you do.

But now it is in many more ways that I miss you.  The little details of the ordinary day demand your presence to be properly enjoyed.  I don't - as I suppose I did in 1933 - wish for you to go out dancing or sight-seeing with, I want you just to sit, stand and walk next to me, my darling friend.

At the Brice there are some people who were with me in 1933.  One of the first things they said to me was to ask whether I was married yet to the girl I wrote letters and postcards to in '33.

I must stop now and do some work.  I wanted to get this letter off to you before but even our evenings have been busy.  I take more part in the organising work than I did last year.

All my eyes and all my heart are for you alone.

Terrick  xxx

Tuesday 12 April 2016

12th April 1936 - Terrick to Mary

Thanks for your letter, which arrived safely.


CERCLE DES ETRANGERS
DE MONACO
SALON DE LECTURE

LE 12th April 1936

I'll see what can be done about this (!) week-end


My Own Mary,

The first day and a half was such a whirl of busy-ness and settling the clients into the programme that I didn't notice much that you weren't there, but now the thought butts in upon me in my busiest times:  Oh if Mary were here how she would laugh - or: what a good story she would make of that.

When my one disagreeable client is doing her disagreeableness, and I am groping mentally for the diplomatic answers, the idea of your taking her off makes me see how funny she really is.  And when my diplomacy comes off I think: I wish she had seen that.

The journey down went off very well.  It was hard work because there was only one dining-car, but there were only two meals and a few services of tea to serve, and a splendid lot of assistants to help me.

But the stay in Nice itself is not nearly such fun.  I think being away from you is responsible for that in more ways than are immediately obvious.  Last year Paul and I just had a frivolous time.  This year my idea of a good time is so completely connected with you that I don't expect or try to enjoy myself much, except in so far as I enjoy ripping for it's own sake.

I am sitting writing this in the Casino at Monte Carlo.  We are running the trip twice this year instead of once so that this has cut out an evening of writing to you.  But now that I have explained the games to a fair number of people I have left them and have "found out a way".

Today it has rained cats and dogs since early morning, and is still at it (10.45p.m.)  It has messed up one of the fêtes but only an unimportant one.  Tomorrow is the Battle of Flowers so it mustn't rain - besides my clients at the Hotel Everest are complaining of the cold today and the proprietress refuses point blank to put on the central heating.

I am sleeping in a bathroom that only has a window looking out onto a pitch dark passage, so that when I wake up in the morning everything is pitch black and I haven't the foggiest idea until I look at my watch, whether it is day, night or next week.

I have been to the shop where I got your bangle last time but they haven't got anything like it.  It was fashionable at the time.

Dean & Dawson's conductor on the train is normally Raymond Whitcomb's man, and he gave me some useful inside information.  Apparently the Asst. Manager has just given notice because he doesn't get on with Pontin, the Manager.  They are just moving to large offices in Berkeley Square, and business is looking up.  I should probably be wanted for the Foreign Independent Tours Dept. (just what Pontin told me) and my salary - at a guess - would be £5 or £6 to start with.

Interesting.

I must stop writing now because in five minutes we start for home.

The roof of my motor coach has become so saturated with rain all day that it leaks - much to the displeasure of some of the clients.  Fortunately all my Cavallero people are very nice.

Next morning

A free morning before the Battle of Flowers.  The sun is shining gloriously and the party are brightening up again.

This morning I woke up and realised that all I wanted was to get back to London and you as quickly as possible.  I had looked forward to coming here because I enjoyed last Easter, but I omitted from my calculations how much water had flowed under our bridge since then.  I didn't mind being away from you for a week then, but now I mind it as much as I minded being here away from you for eight months in 1933.  I am sitting in the Brice writing this and for a moment three years seem to have rolled back and I am telling you you love me while you are answering that you don't - and saying it in such a way that I am only more certain that you do.

But now it is in many more ways that I miss you.  The little details of the ordinary day demand your presence to be properly enjoyed.  I don't - as I suppose I did in 1933 - wish for you to go out dancing or sight-seeing with, I want you just to sit, stand and walk next to me, my darling friend.

At the Brice there are some people who were with me in 1933.  One of the first things they said to me was to ask whether I was married yet to the girl I wrote letters and postcards to in '33.

I must stop now and do some work.  I wanted to get this letter off to you before but even our evenings have been busy.  I take more part in the organising work than I did last year.

All my eyes and all my heart are for you alone.

Terrick  xxx

Monday 11 April 2016

11th April 1936 - Mary to Terrick

Dunally Lodge
Shepperton-on-Thames

Good Friday
9.15p.m.


My very own and dearest Ticky

The last twenty-four hours have seemed very, very empty for one side of me it's difficult to spend half one's self speeding off to Nice - having said good-bye quite casually at Victoria - and yet behave as a complete human being.  But the other half is behaving awfully well.  It's only when it comes to the evening after a wonderfully sunny day, that I really notice an emptiness.  

I may say that I had great fun on the platform, getting behind fat ladies and tall men as you walked past me twice (within about 2 yards) without seeing me.  i thought perhaps I might hinder you if you new I was there.  But it was worth waiting - just to feel so miserable as you steamed out!!  Did you have a good crossing? - and how did the meals go? - I thought of you earlier this evening - being absolutely fed up and tired of them all.  I expect you'll sleep well tonight.

I drove off to have my photograph taken after you went - it was just near St James' Palace. A very nice place on the 5th floor - with a particularly nice secretary and Mr Douglas - with long hair and a little beard who left me to change in the studio (while he phoned a friend in Paris to say he'd be with him for breakfast!).  he took about 30 different photos of me! - in every conceivable position - some with my cape on & some off.  He was very nice and talked all the time.  I shall have the proofs in a week ( I hope, before your come back).  I haven't 'phoned the Press yet - but will tomorrow.

Jill hasn't got measles badly, but is covered in spots - so we shall have a very quiet Easter.  Andy has put off coming and Grannie & Auntie Hell tomorrow.  Send Jill a p.c. if you have time because she's got to stay in bed for a week ( and you know what sitting still means for her!).

I have just finished writing 10 letters to people who've congratulated us.  Mummy has had heaps of circulars as well this week from caterers  and fashion magazines.  today she has been trying to finish a set of breakfast table mats out of the blue & white check material (like my sun-bathing suit) - for my bottom drawer to match our blue set with the white spots - which I am urged to go and buy straight away!  Shall I? - just for fun! - I would love to.

I have stuck a Morning Post cutting in my "newspaper-cutting" album - later on when I have collected a few more about us (I've got Eileen's in) - I shall label them "Step I", "Step II", "Step III" etc!  Did you send the Morning Post home?  I wonder what they'll think of it.  Does Uncle Bill know yet?

What shall we do about next weekend? - I suppose you won't be able to come home - will you?  But I must be with you - a week without you and I shall be quite uncontrollable - so what can we do?

- Do you think it would really matter if you came home?

I hope Renny's having a nice weekend - I wish we were there together - I have just been looking at my diary for Easter 1934 - it's so nice to read all I felt then - and to realize how much more I feel now.

I love you, my dearest dear, with every bit of me that has the power to love.

- It seems to wrap us both together in a blanket - in peace, and quiet and contentment - and every now and again we step outside to join in with the people without blankets - enjoying the new experience more because of our blanket that we've got waiting behind us.

Please, darling, look after me for always - because we love each other so much.

Your very own 

Mary Pleasant
                     xxx


P.S. Can we "Bowman" next weekend?    I've found last year's catalogue - also a letter from Nice written this time last year!!  Can I have my 3rd p.c. of you on coach conducting tour?

Sunday 3 April 2016

3rd April 1936 - Terrick to Mary

No ink in pen, except for envelope

3rd April 1936


Dearest Fianceé!

I hear that you rang up before I got in this evening.  I was working till about twenty past six and then I had a drink with Digby.

This morning I sent of the announcement to the "Morning Post" so it will be in either tomorrow or Monday.  I was able to get it off then because the Insurance won't want any money till next week so I am told.

The doctor pronounced me as sound as a bell in heart, lungs and water!

While I was in Selfridges post office sending off the announcement who should come up to me by Phil Lasbry and then Jack Carlton.  They both congratulated me, having heard the news from you.

I hope you like "1066".  I wish I was seeing it with you.

Today I have spent a lot of time in buses going to and from wholesale places, and in the buses I evolved the rough idea of a film story, which I have knocked into shape this evening.  There are main parts for you, Jack, Jill, Mrs Ormo, David, Renny & Mr Lingwood, and a number of extras required for odd parts.  The parts suit Jack, Jill, David and Renny down to the ground, they won't need to "act" much, but your part is a Bodil one so - if you do it - you will have to use all your talent.  Jack, Jill and David are three thieving vagabonds, Mrs Ormo is a county lady, you are her daughter, Renny your admirer staying in the house, Mr Lingwood the butler, and the other villagers and visitors at a grand fête.  John L. could also be camerman.  We might drag in another man by making Mr L your father and Andy the butler.

Shall we call ourselves the Formitz Amateur Film Club and have reports of our activities in Home Movies and Amateur Ciné every month?  Then when it is finished we can give a show or perhaps two, including films borrowed from other amateur film clubs, charging 6d each.  We'll send it up to Amateur Ciné World for criticism.

Then for the next film, with all the lighting paid for, we can be a bit more ambitious still.  We'll have a different director, a different camera-man etc. the "more ambitious" part might take the form of renting a studio for 10/- a week somewhere fairly accessible for us all, then we could throw the membership open as long as we liked the people.

This scenario gives Jack & Jill plenty of acting and close-ups so it might succeed in making them interested.  If you think that no one ought to know more than they (!! ye gods), they can read all my books.

Could you possibly meet me in the lunch hour next Wednesday and go and visit Bowman's together?  Perhaps one day after Easter would be better because then I can take a long lunch hour.  I am very rushed at present.

Goodnight my darling.  Or rather good morning.

I'll be going to Doddy's to give Jack an opera hat, but he'll be coming to Dunally won't he?  As I am coming I needn't bother about seeing him at Doddy's.

All my heart

Terrick  xxx

Saturday 2 April 2016

Early April 1936 - Letter to Terrick from his mother


My dear Terrick

As you have not the means to marry I can take no notice of such a childish engagement.  It was not done in my day & as I only cut this paragraph out on Wed. in the Daily Mail it is not done now.


I should think jobs as elocution mistresses could be very difficult to get & badly paid.  In my day we always had professionals teach us & I can't think it is different now.  

The weather is beautiful now.   You will want your summer things in there.  Anything you send in Holy week, 6th April, you can't have back till Tues 14th because they won't return it on Good Friday & there are no parcels delivered on Monday Bank Holiday.  So send everything in the next 2 weeks you want.  My dreadful cook leaves today & old cook comes back again.  I wish she could stay.  Baker has been very quick this time with Herbert's collars & cuffs.  Ribbentrop is very nice looking.  Eden is just too splendid looking!  Baldwin wants to avoid war at any cost & he is right.  France longs to smash Germany & this is her opportunity as Germany is not ready yet.  I hear there are search lights over London now.  

We went to such an interesting lecture at Aysgarth School given by Major Harrison D.S.O. on his escapes from Germany during the war.  Someone had made very amusing drawings on it which were shown on the screen.  You would have liked it.  The boys revelled in it.  

The ??s give up this summer & the Thompsons, a young couple come in.  I wonder how they will get on.  Miss Lunt, the Bishop's daughter is engaged to be married to one of her father's curates in Portsea.  He is going to be Vicar of Jarrow-on-Tyne.  An awful place.  It is a pity because she is so young, only 20 & so pretty.  Fawkes has not given up his living yet although he has come into his brother's estate.  I see the Cecil family are agitating against this tithe bill.

I hope Mary never says a word bout Uncle Bill's money to Aunt M. as she would write at once to him about it & then goodbye to it.  We are going to see George Arliss in The 'Guv'nor' Daddy saw the beginning of it & says it is the finest play he has seen.

I am making a rug for the W. I. exhibition in Leyburn.  Do you think you should write to Lord Wharton?  It is a shame!  I think it was funny about Nancy Capes.  Has Studd said anything?  I suppose the Western Brothers wanted to shock you.

Your loving 

Mother